Rather Simple By Comparison

Fr. Jim Martin, S.J., has a good reflection over at In All Things on today's sesquicentennial anniversary at Lourdes.

Here's a passage:

It has become fashionable in recent years, especially after Vatican II, to downplay the miraculous, the supernatural or the otherworldly aspects of our Catholic faith--at least among a few Catholics. And so Lourdes can be a difficult thing for some Catholics to grasp. Apparitions? Voices? Miracles? Are these things, people ask me, consistent with a mature faith?

I've never had that problem. Or those questions. I consider myself a rational person, and a fairly well educated Catholic, who is also not a literalist in any way when it comes to things like, say, Scripture. But, in my theological worldview, I've always believed that we need to be exceedingly careful about saying what God can and cannot do, and how God does and does not act. Or, worse, how God should act or not act.

That's one of the things that landed the scribes and the Pharisees in so much trouble.

For me the story of the apparitions of Mary to St. Bernadette are easy to believe. If God can create the world and raise his son from the dead, then something like Lourdes is rather simple by comparison, I would think. And having visited Lourdes several times, I'm even more convinced.